How far can you go? 44 comments

15 Nov 2009 @ 23:45 I have not written much lately, reason being that I cannot (or should not) type. One of my shoulders suffered a hard blow and got crippled last Monday in a sport accident. The doctors advised me of course not to move at all for about three to six weeks – doctors are known to give realistic, easy-to-keep advices… So here I am, after only a short week, doing the chores around the house, typing away on the computer, playing piano, gardening. As my body is not used to sitting around, I even tried some light workout, all in an effort trying to rest the bad shoulder. So, how have I got into that situation? Truth of the matter is that I have made a mistake. Not even one, but actually a whole bunch of mistakes, resulting in the accident. It actually turned out quite lucky in compare to the circumstances. I fell under and was simply run over by my horse – and horses tend to be heavy when they trample over a shoulder. At this time I was able to conclude from a subjective experience that one needs to omit a whole bunch of safety precautions in order to manage a nice accident. It is not enough to make just one small error. It is a whole list of things that have to be overlooked, causing trouble. What have I learned? Well, a lesson, that in technical sports one always needs to check the equipment and take the usual precautions. Regardless of all those years of experience, one should not get too cocky. Regardless of being an expert, one just needs to play by the rules, as the physical world is cruel and unforgiving. Yesterday I went back to my sport club and chatted to some people about what happened. In an honest mood, I confessed all the mistakes that lead to the accident. I also added that it can happen despite more than 20 years of experience. At that point an intellectual looking college student-type girl, overhearing the conversation asked, how could one err so badly? She nailed me, telling it’s simply NOT POSSIBLE to make such mistakes, especially when one is so experienced. So there I was, my sole reality questioned. It’s not possible. So maybe it did not happen? But it did. Her question raised my interest. So if it’s not possible – how could it happen anyway? I started to look at it philosophically. How come, we know exactly what to do, how to do something correctly – still we just don’t do it? How come we don’t care sometimes and go into all kind of dangerous situations, and see if we can pull it off? The proverb “to err is human” did no satisfy me. I looked for some deeper answers. Then I asked around from my friends, and the answers I got confirmed my ideas. It seems to me there are the following reasons: One: We like to stretch the limits. Yes, we do. And it seems that without doing that, there is not much progress. Playing it safe has not brought any breakthroughs for mankind. Most discoveries, forward steps in history were involving some risky business. Two: We like to learn. The desire to learn is a deep and ancient need. It saturates most of our experiences. And how can one ever progress or learn, after having fully mastered an area, and always using “best practices”? Sometime we choose to learn by letting things slip a bit, so new situations can emerge, that we need to figure out. It involves taking risks of course, and sometimes “bad” things happen. But, some learning always results. Three: We like surprises – to experience something new. It’s simply not much excitement to always know the next event. After a while it’s boring to have total control. When the behavior of something is fully predictable, a large part of the fun is gone. So one needs to set up situations with some unpredictable factors, so surprise gets a chance. And so we create some fun – sometimes the outcome is a little hard on the body, but we must admit it is still fun. Ask any racer. Actually the three reasons are very similar, coming from a basic polarity. There are two ends of the pendulum swing: one is to keep total order, to get everything fully under control. The other end is to see how far can one go with it? And the pendulum swings, back and forth. We learn how to control an area – then we reach a point where it is “too much”, too predictable – and we start to swing toward the other end, let it go out of control to some degree and stretch the limits. The long and short of it, if you want to play it safe, if you don’t want surprises then learn your subject well and play by the rules. Check and double check your equipment, and do the usual. But if you are ready for some fun, unpredictable changes, learn some new things, involving some risks, then by any means, go for it! I will not even add, to know your limits – I know it is exactly the question: what are the limits!?

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